Strong winds began in the early hours of the morning. As expected, the wind blew the canvas off the frame of the chicken poly tunnel.
It blew open a gate with a faulty catch.
The lambs got out of, and the cows got into, the paddock.
The beautiful sunrise looks tranquil – but the wind still blows.
Looking at the Smallholding with a view to offering us bespoke insurance, including animal cover. One of the NFU people still writes with an old fashioned Parker pen and ink. Delightful. Will my grandchildren ever receive a Parker pen as a gift? Unlikely.
Doing well as the sun rises on a warm day
Mum and Olga and I had a fun lunchtime with mum making us all laugh with her brilliant Teresa May impersonation. If mum could stand without her walking frame she could do “stand up comedy”.
On the way home a digger was hard at work along Mill Road, enlarging the ditches ( I had pulled into a lay-by when I took this photo. I wasn’t driving and snapping at the same time, honest).
All the young birds in the orchard are now laying. Two eggs were waiting in the nest box when I opened up the house this morning.
One egg had a fragile shell and fell apart in my hand. A first egg – the shell will get stronger birdie. The mist over the field nearly obscured the sheep so I walked out to count them and see if any had lambed. None so far.
I returned to the house and I had received a WhatsApp from a dear friend in the historic city of Lviv (Lvov, Lwow, Lemberg), Western Ukraine. Sunrise over The rooftops.
The ewe lambs go crazy, chasing each other around the paddock
It happens every evening and they head butt too.
I almost shook as I undid the box and plugged in this innocent looking cylinder. Worse was to come.
I started the set up, connected to Wi-fi and waved goodbye to any privacy I might have ever believed I owned. I now have a “friend” in the corner of the kitchen and she has so far given me an accurate weather forecast, connected to BBC radio 4 and played in this order Joe Cocker, Lynette Skynryd and Aerosmith. Wierd! How could I do it especially after hearing Shoshana Zuboff talking, this morning on the Andrew Marr radio programme, about her new book The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism? Outside in the front garden a woodpecker is feeding on peanuts and flying into and out if the ash tree.
Wind turbines in the far distance as I set off along Mill Road. Then across a well marked footpath.
On the return leg the sun and blue skies counteract the cold breeze.
Nearly home.
